Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1887-10-13
IN THE BRAVE DAYS OF OLD.

The picture hangs upon tne wall oi
my sitting-room; the room that over
looks the Channel. From its windows,
when the atmosphere is favorable,
can SEQ the French coast-llne; and
when there is q gale, and the steamers
are plowiDg heavily in the waves, and
the sail-vessels are scudding under
bare poles, / love to take my sewing or
nv book into one of the great bow
windows, and ENJOY the grand view.
NV father built the house so near the
sea, because he had been sailor all
his life, and he could not live far away
from salt water. When he died, the
place came to me; and the man
married happened to hold an important
| position in the revenuo service. and IL
was precisely the thing that we should
live in this dear old home. So my
children we're born here, grew up here,
and two are buried in the Cliff Gene
terry. over yonder. They, the living,
are all married now, and living In
houses of their own, from Lands End
TO John O'Groat's;" bat each summer
the old home is full of them and their
families, and my dear grandchildren,
sometimes a dozen of them together,
make me young again with their mirth
and laughter and charming child-ways.
And the picture?
1t hung there in my own childhood !;
il has hung there ever since. Thought
it the bravest, handsomest picture that
could be; and not child nor grand
child of mine but has been attracted to
it from the time that anything was no.
ticed.
No ordinary picture is it, you may
he surel If it had been made in these
cbeap days of big imperial photo
graphs, and colored Autographs, and
9audy chromos, there would be moth
ing about it worth five minutes notice:
But if you look in the lower ie1t-nano
corner, YOU will find the mark, y. H.
pink, 1855" and that, l may tell you
was the mark of Sir Joshua reynolds
the most famous painter of the reign'
of the Four Georges.
So it is a painting, and no common
one either. Those colors were laid OF
by master hand. 1t is of grand siz'
six feet by four and half L coul'
: turn nv eyes from it and describe
every detail of it. A sailor-boy o
twelve. hatless, and fair of face as th'
pictures of the youthful Byron, sits u
; on the high main cross-trees OF tn
ship, his back to the mast, his left ham
!. grasping one of the ropes by which h
5 has ascended to this dizzy height, hi
o left foot braced against cross-ropes
: his right foot swinging, his right han
resting on the timber of the cross-tree
His flaxen hair and the loose ends
his neckerchief are blowing out; yt
there is not wind enough below to ruff
the ocean, for, far down and lar ava
T. TO the horizon, you see it stretch n
: as placid as pond. An albatross is Il,
n ing about the sh p-the only other II
ing creature in sight. There he sit
clinging to the rope, his blue eyes ga
ing off over the wide ocean-O,
eagerly.
For years past they have come
:, me, my children and grandchildre
and begged me to tell them about tn
handsome little sailor.
st "There must be some story abo
= 4. him, y has been the common remark.
Indeed there is, my dear, and go'
one. You shall hear it.
The time has come when it has be-
told to all of them; even to little Mi
q ME, who has not yet given up b
n dolls. So now the great, kind pub
shall be my children, and for the La
time will I relate the story OF this bra
IL sailor-boy.